Bladesinger - Keith Francis Strohm [43]
Now Taen and his companions found themselves furtively traveling in the long, bleak silence of the night. Roberc led the group, sitting astride Cavan, who, the half-elf noted, walked easily despite the weight of rider and barding. Borovazk strode alongside the mounted halfling, his deep voice muffled and oddly gentle as he whispered some passing story to his newfound companion. Taen smiled as he thought about the unlikely pair. Whether dicing, drinking, or exchanging raucous insults, the giantlike Rashemi ranger and the diminutive fighter were becoming fast friends.
Selov followed a few steps behind, his almost skeletal frame wrapped in a thick gray cloak. The former wizard had insisted on walking without aid, even when their brisk pace had sent the Rashemi into a paroxysm of wheezing. He had waved off the suggestion that they slow down, vowing that he would not delay them. So far, Taen noted, he hadn't.
Even so, Marissa kept close to the wizened innkeeper, walking alongside him and asking questions about the Urlingwood and the telthor that he knew of in the area. Taen watched the druid as she walked-seemingly carefree and easy along the twisting path-and nearly forgot to breathe. Marissa wore the moonlight like a mantle. It spilled down the length of her hair and traced the graceful outline of her body like molten silver. Everything about her caught and reflected that light; she glittered and gleamed beneath the dome of the night sky. With the Staff of the Red Tree held lightly in her right hand, casting its own pale illumination, the druid looked like nothing so much as one of the Seldarine, or an avatar of Sehanine Moonbow, gracing this plane with her presence.
He shook his head sharply, as if to shake away those fanciful thoughts. Whatever had happened to Marissa since she had come under Rashemen's spell, it was clear to Taen that she seemed more whole than she had been ever since the blightlord had destroyed her arm. That night was a terrible one-for her as well as for him. His heart wept for Marissa as she shouted and thrashed beneath the fury of the fever raging through her body. He bared his soul to her, thinking that she would never remember but wanting to offer her some comfort, some knowledge that she was not alone in the world, that he, too, had lost something so dear it was like losing a part of himself.
What had happened next was even worse-for the druid had remembered. Now that night of intimacy lay between them, a treasured memory and a goad in his side. Taen's heart had already been given-and pierced beneath a moon just like this one.
Talaedra! He nearly cried her name out loud.
Beneath the sharpness of that grief, Taen knew that he could never give himself to another, so he and Marissa had spent the years dancing endlessly between intimacy and friendship.
Until now, he thought with a terrible certainty. Now she was whole.
And-perhaps-beyond him.
He wanted to find out now, in the midst of their journey to meet the wychlaran. Such was the burden he felt that it lay like a geas on his heart, but just as he began to quicken his pace in an effort to draw near the druid, Selov called a halt.
"We are close to the well," he said after a long draught from his waterskin. "There is a deer track about half a candle's walk west of here. It cuts northeast for a ways and then opens into an abandoned trade road. If we follow the track and then walk along the road, we'll come to a large oak that has been split by lightning. The well is just a short walk beyond the oak."
The others nodded, passing around a skin of wine and some salted beef before pressing on. The stillness of the deep night held as they marched onward. Taen tried several subtle attempts to draw Marissa into a private conversation, but the druid seemed distracted, answering him with simple grunts or not at all. As they picked their way carefully through the deer track, avoiding the fallen